KC Improv Blog Ring, May Edition

"Warmups before shows: good, bad or indifferent?"

Good. I have to admit I'm a little surprised that this is even a question. I thought it was a given that a warmed-up instrument gives a better performance. I will read with great interest - and an open mind, naturally - if anyone thinks it's a bad idea to warm up, and justifies it.

Go outside in January, and start your car. You're just going down to the C-store for a pack of smokes. You can get there and back in six minutes, and how long does it take for the engine to get warm? Eff it, just go. Screech, cough, clunk, grind... that's exactly what your body and your voice do onstage if you jump out there cold. You move like Frankenstein's creature, and your words come out sounding misspelled, if they're audible at all. You aren't fun for the audience to watch, unless they came to make fun of how awkward you are. Congratulations, you win the Tor Johnson Award for "so terrible it's a cult classic" - and that's just the physical aspects of your performance.

Now, you can do body and vocal warmups on your own, even a little earlier in the day. Your brain might even perk up playing "Song Spot" in the car by yourself. But there's no way to engage the group mind until you get the group together - and it must be in an engaged state from the moment the lights go up, as must all individual brains. It's not a compliment when someone says about your show, "Once they got going, it was funny."

Your head is not full of spiritual ether. The connections you make, alone or en masse, are not magic. There are specific functions happening in your brain, on a physical, tangible and (with an MRI) visible level. Some ancient Greek actor might have made an offering to Dionysus, to be granted the power to give a pleasing performance - but inside his head, synapses fired and blood flowed to the areas that would amplify his perception and communication, and focus his energy. As a whole company of actors performed the same ritual, their beta waves tuned to the same frequency.

Okay, I need more information on neurology to get where I'm going with that. And maybe a few improvisers willing to wear electrodes. The point is, performance muscles do not have an instant-on switch. They are engaged through activity. And while any individual is capable of preparing alone, and some people are capable of being "on all the time," a performing group bears a responsibility to support each other by tuning in before setting foot onstage. If anyone's disconnected, the audience will be too, and it won't have been a worthwhile use of their time to come see your show, or a worthwhile use of yours to have done it.